Polish/Polish alphabet and pronunciation
Any questions about alphabet or pronunciation? Just ask in special topic on slavic unity forum, located here Main sources were wikibook, skwierzyna.net and wikipedia. The Polish alphabet is the script of the Polish language. It is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as the acute accent (ć, ń, ó, ś, ź), the dot above (ż), the ogonek (ą, ę), and the stroke (ł). The standard 8-bit character encoding for the Polish alphabet is ISO 8859-2 (Latin-2), although both ISO 8859-13 (Latin-7) and ISO 8859-16 (Latin-10) encodings include glyphs of the Polish alphabet. Microsoft's format for encoding the Polish alphabet is Windows-1250Polish letters typewriter.. The letters q, v and x do not belong to the Polish alphabet, but are used in some foreign words and commercial names. In loanwords they are often replaced by kw, w and ks, respectivelyAs in kwarc "quartz", weranda "veranda", ksenofobia "xenophobia".. Pronunciation Polish pronunciation is rather regular. If you learn the rules, you'll be able to guess how a word is pronounced, unlike in English. Vowels are pronounced similar to their counterparts in most other European languages but not like in English though. But note, there are no long vowels. Stress is almost always on the penultimateCalled also second-to-last syllable. syllable. If you don't know how to pronounce hard/soft pairs, you can use the same form and you will usually be understood. Polish vowels "a", "e", "i", "y", "o", "u" are all pronounced with exactly the same short length, achieved by not moving the tongue or the lips after the onset of the vowel, as happens, for example, in English vowel-sounds "ee"like in knee., "oe" like in t'oe', "oo"'like in b''oo''t. Only the nasal vowels are pronounced long, the length being due to rounding the lips and pronouncing the glide '"w" at the end, like in polish word są. For the combination "oi" (e.g. stoi, moi, twoi), the vowels are pronounced separately, never "oy". In words like [[Light|'lekki']]Light., [[Breath|'oddech']]Breath., [[Daily newspaper|'dziennik']]Daily newspaper, [[Mammal|'ssak']]Mammal, the doubled consonants are pronounced individually or lengthened. You may also notice something called final devoicing, Most importantly, voiced consonant sounds b, d, dz, g, rz, w, z, ź, ż are pronounced as unvoiced sounds ("p", "t", "c", "k", "sz", "f", "s", "ś", "sz", respectively) in final position. For example, paw is pronounced "paf". Devoicing is not something you need to focus on but you should be aware of it. So-called kreska consonants ("ć", "dź", "ń", "ś", "ź") are spelled with an acute mark only at word-end and before consonants; otherwise, they are spelled as "c", "dz", "s", "z", "n" plus a following i: dzień "dźeń", nie "ńe". Before the vowel i itself, no extra i is needed ci pronouced as "ći"''to you. Certain instances of b, p, w, f, m are latently soft, meaning that they will be treated as soft (in effect, as if kreska consonants) before vowels. In the spelling, they will be followed by i. Compare ''paw peacock, plural pawie (paw'-e)peacocks. The letter y can be written only after a hard consonant (see below) or after c, cz, dz, rz, sz, ż. The letter i after the consonants c, dz, n, s, z always indicates the pronunciations ć, dź, ń, ś, ź, respectively. Only i, never y, may be written after l or j. Letters "a" and "ą" ą, sometimes called as "nasal o" is pronounced like: *on *when followed by b or p like english "om" except that the lips or tongue are not completely closed to pronounce the m, leaving a nasal resonance instead. *like /ɔw̃/ when ą is followed by ł, most Poles will pronounce it as o. Leter "h" an digraph "ch" The sound of ch is much raspier and noisier than English h. Pronounced the same as ch, the letter h appears mainly in words of foreign origin. Letters "e" and "ę" The letter e is usually separated from a preceding k or g by i, indicating a change before e of k, g to k', g': jakie, drogie. The sound ę is pronounced like em, except that the lips or tongue are not completely closed to pronounce the m, leaving a nasal resonance instead. At the end of a word, the letter ę is normally pronounced the same as e, so word naprawdęReally. should be pronouced like naprawde. Letter "ó" and "u" Polish letters "u" and "ó" are pronounced in that same way. Letter "s" as the'' "s"'' in [[Silk|'s'''ilk]]. Always soft like in silk, never pronounced as a z. Letter "j" The letter j is dropped after a vowel before i like ''stoję''I stand but ''stoisz''you stand Letters "au" Ussually pronouced like '''ou' in [[Loud|l'ou'd]] but its one exception. Compound words, e.g., words with the prefix na or za such as nauczyć and zaufać. In that case, the vowels a and u are pronounced separately. Letters "ci" and "ć" The letters ç and ci- are pronounced the same. The combination ci- is used before a vowel. The letter c before i is pronounced like ç/ci-. C followed by i is pronounced just like ć. If ci is followed by another vowel, the i serves only to produce the ć sound, so ciastko''cookie could be misspelled "ćastko''". Letters "ń" and "ni" The letters "ń" and "ni-" are pronounced the same. The combination ni-''' is used before a vowel. The letter '''"n" before "i" is pronounced like "ń", "ni-". Digraph "dź" and dipthtong "dzi" "Dź" like the "g" in [[Gene|'g'''ene]], similar to but softer than "dż". The letters "dź" and "dzi-" are pronounced the same. The combination "dzi-" is used before a vowel. The letters dz before i are pronounced like "dź", "dzi". Letters "ź" and "zi" The letters ê and zi- are pronounced the same. The combination zi- is used before a vowel. The letter z before i is pronounced like ê/zi-. Letters "ś" and "si" The letters Ê and si- are pronounced the same. The combination si- is used before a vowel. The letter s before i is pronounced like Ê/si-. Digraph "rz" Like the "s" in [[Vision|vi's'ion]], or fairly similar '''Zh'ivago. Sounds exactly the same as ż. Even Poles find it impossibleto pronounce after "k", "ch", "p", or "t". Pronouncing it as "sh" is fine in those cases. the only difference being that "ż" evolved from a /*g/ while "rz" is descended from a palatalized ar /*rʲ/. Digraph "sz" Like the "sh" in [[Ship|'sh'ip]], hard sh. Letters "zi" Letter "z" followed by "i" is pronounced just like "ź". If "zi" is followed by another vowel, the "i" serves only to produce the "ź" sound, so ziarnograin could be misspelled "źarno". Category:Learning Polish